Your Rights When Dealing With Police

With the number of news stories about police abusing their authority seemingly increasing every year, I though it might be a good idea to do a little research to discover what your rights are when you are stopped by the cops. Most of the information I’m posting here is from settlement.org‘s FAQ on The Police and You:

The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms protects your rights if the police stop you and want to question you or if they arrest you.

• The police cannot stop you, search you, or arrest you without a good reason.
• The police must say who they are and show identification.
• Police cannot enter your home unless they have your permission, a warrant to arrest someone or do a search, or unless they are responding to an emergency. You have to go to the police station only if you are under arrest.
• The police must tell you that you are being arrested and why; and they must be sure you understand them. You have the right to an interpreter when you are dealing with the law.
• If you are arrested, the police must tell you at once that you have the right to a lawyer. You have the right to choose your lawyer, and to call and talk to your lawyer in private. If you can’t afford a lawyer, the police will give you the toll-free 24-hour number for Legal Aid (a service provided by the government).
• The police must bring you to a justice of the peace or a bail hearing to set the terms for your release as soon as possible after your arrest, usually within 24 hours.
• The police may touch you, but not harm you or use unnecessary force.

Special Cases:

• If you are under 18 years of age, you have other rights under the Youth Offenders Act. A younger person who is accused or convicted is not treated the same way as an adult.
• If you are stopped while driving, you must show your driver’s licence, car registration and insurance certificate. If you don’t, you may be charged under the Highway Traffic Act.
• If they believe you have been drinking alcohol before or during driving, the police can insist you take a roadside breath test. If they ask you to take this test, you don’t have the right to call your lawyer first.
• If the police have reason to believe you can’t drive correctly because you drank alcohol or took drugs, they can ask for a blood or urine test. If they ask for another test, you do have the right to speak to a lawyer. If you refuse to take the tests, the police will charge you.

If the police suspect you have committed a crime, you should tell them your name, address, and date of birth. If these prove that the police have the wrong person, then you won’t be arrested. If the police think you have committed only a minor crime, and you have identified yourself, they may not arrest you. Instead, they will give you a paper telling you when to go to court. If you don’t identify yourself, the police can hold you until they find out who you are.

You do not have to answer any other questions; Just ask to speak to a lawyer and the police must stop asking questions. Do not resist the police. Usually, things go better if you are polite with the police. You are presumed innocent until proven guilty in court.

If you decide to talk to the police, anything you say can be used as evidence in court.

So, it looks like your best bet is to not tell the cops anything beyond your identification and ask to see a lawyer first.  I’ve heard that the police can also lie to your about your legal rights, and basically try to trick you into confessing a crime.  I don’t know if that’s just in the US or if it applies to Canada, too.

I guess the best thing to keep in mind when dealing with the police in situations like this is that the police are not your friends.  They are out looking for criminals and will bust you if they think you are one.

A Word of Advice

Expired Kraft Dinner does not taste as good as you might think.

The Nude Bomb

Finally, The Nude Bomb (a.k.a. The Return of Maxwell Smart) is coming out on DVD, not doubt due to the soon-to-be-released movie Get Smart starring Steve Carell (which I am also looking forward to).  While The Nude Bomb was not very faithful to the original TV series from the sixties, it’s still a good movie on its own.

“It appears you are not a complete fool, Mr. Smart.  Almost — very close! — but not complete.”

Clone Wars – Captain Rex Mail-Away Offer on eBay

I just set up my first eBay listing in a decade. I have a bunch of extra UPCs from Star Wars figures, along with a redemption certificate for a special mail-away figure of Captain Rex:

Hopefully someone will find this useful as I’ve already sent off for two of these figures myself.

Toy Nostalgia – Little Plastic Robots

I won two auctions last week for these little plastic robot toys:

(click to enlarge)

I’ve been looking for more of these toys for many, many years. I’ve lost all the ones I used to have as a kid, save for one badly mangled one.

If you happen to come across any of these little plastic robots and are interested in selling them to me, let me know!

UPDATE: Apparently these figurines were also used in the 1986 boardgame TronQuest!  The robot classifications appear to be Controller, Lasertron, Guardian, Protector, and Interceptor.   Not sure which is which, though.

Garfield Minus Garfield Again

Not too long ago I made a post about some Garfield comics with Garfield edited out of them. Apparently the creator of the Garfield comic strip — Jim Davis — likes Garfield Minus Garfield.

“Some of the strips were slappers: ‘Oh, I could have left that out.’ It would have been funnier,” Davis says.

Maybe I’m just a bit cynical, but I’m actually surprised it didn’t turn into another stupid lawsuit-o-rama circus. How sad is that, when decency becomes surprising behavior?

And with that, I leave you with the Garfield strips from October 23 to 29, 1989. Yes, these are the actual strips that were published:

Remember Brenda Martin…Stay Away From Mexico!

Earlier today, a Mexican judge convicted Brenda Martin, a Canadian woman, guilty of money laundering.  What makes this judgment so special is that it was made without any evidence at all of the defendant, Brenda Martin’s, guilt.  The only link between Ms. Martin and the $60 million internet fraud scheme she was convicted of being a part of is that she worked for a person who was convicted of said scheme.  This person, who was convicted in 2006, claims that Ms. Martin had no knowledge of the scheme at all.

Let me repeat this: there is no evidence at all that Brenda Martin was guilty of any crime.

You see, when you are arrested in Mexico, you are considered guilty until you can prove yourself innocent.  There is no such thing as being “tried by your peers” in an open court.

Brenda Martin had to wait in a Guadalajara jail for over two years to hear this verdict.  Yes, not only was she convicted of a crime without any evidence at all, she has also already languished in prison for over two years…sitting in prison, depressed, heavily sedated to keep her calm, and on a 24-hour suicide watch.

I just came back from a trip to Mexico a month ago.  If this is how foreign citizens can expect to be treated by the Mexican government, then to hell with Mexico!  I will not go back there unless Brenda Martin receives justice and the judge responsible for all this is punished.

I urge the rest of you to reconsider vacationing in Mexico.

Uwe Boll to Make a World of Warcraft Movie?

NOT!

From MTV Movies Blog:

“I [Uwe Boll] got in contact with Paul Sams of Blizzard, and he said, ‘We will not sell the movie rights, not to you…especially not to you,’”

Regrowing Body Parts

The U.S. Military has just announced that they have created a new agency called the Armed Forces Institute of Regenerative Medicine, whose purpose is to research and develop technology for growing replacement body parts for soldiers.

Hopefully this kind of technology will become commonplace in the near future, benifiting amputees and accident victims in addition to soldiers.

The Secret of the McRib

Every once in a while, the McRib sandwich appears at McDonalds for a few weeks only to disappear again, often for years at a time.  Why does this sandwich come and go so sporadically?  I think I may have discovered the answer.

Earlier today, my buddy at work relayed a conversation he had with an acquaintance of his who happened to be a farmer.  Evidently, the reason the McRib appears only once-in-a-while, and for such a short time, is that every now and then the price of pork goes really low.  When this happens, McDonalds buys a whole bunch and turns them into delicious McRibs.  This, in turn, leads to a rise in pork prices which reduces the profitability of the McRib sandwich.  McDonalds stops buying pork, and the McRib sandwich disappears.

A month ago the McRib sandwich appeared at local McDonalds restaurants (t has since disappeared).  This has apparently coincided with an overpopulation in western Canadian sow herds (excess supply = low prices).

Interesting…